Google on Thursday announced that it will begin allowing select developers to reply to users reviews on its Google Play store. “User reviews on Google Play are great for helping people discover quality apps and give feedback to developers and other potential app users,” Trevor Johns wrote on Google’s developers blog. “But what about when developers want to give feedback to their users? Sometimes a user just needs a helping hand, or perhaps a new feature has been added and the developer wants to share the good news.” The feature will be available today, initially to those with a “Top Developer badge,” and based off feedback, the feature may be offered to additional developers in the future. “...

When Spinal Tap’s manager was asked whether the band was less popular because it wasn’t selling out large venues any more, he replied that the band was just as popular but that its appeal had simply “become more selective.” Google is apparently angling for something similar with its spin on Google+ engagement, as Google vice president of product Bradley Horowitz told The Guardian on Wednesday that Google actually wants there to be more friction that slows down users’ sharing over the social network.
“Friction can be a very good thing. We’ve introduced quite a bit of friction on our system,” he said, referring to the fact that users have to specify which circles they want to share with before...

After watching Judge Alsup strike down its patent and Java API infringement claims, Oracle seems to be cutting its losses, agreeing to accept $0 in damages from Google. Confused? So was the Judge, who reportedly responded to the proposal by asking, "is there a catch I need to be aware of?" No catch, but Oracle isn't giving up, stating that it's taking its case to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. If successful, the appeal could put the two firms back in Alsup's courtroom, perhaps asking for somewhere between the previously proposed $32.3 million and today's sum total of zilch. We'll let you know when the drama comes around again.

Google’s security blog on Tuesday revealed new details on how the search giant is keeping Internet users safe from malware. The Mountain View-based company protects 600 million users through built-in protection for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari that warns users of dangerous websites. Every day the company encounters about 9,500 new websites that have been compromised or specifically designed for malware distribution. Approximately 12 million to 14 million Google Search queries, and 300,000 downloads, also trigger the company’s warning to caution users on a daily basis. “By protecting Internet users, webmasters, ISPs, and Google over the years, we’ve built up a steadily more sophisticated under...

If you’re one of the geeks who gets giddy at the thought of getting your hands on the tiny and cheap little Raspberry Pi computer, you’ll soon have a new choice of operating system to run on the device. A Chromium OS hacker going by Hexxeh has been working the port the Chromium OS over to the Raspberry Pi board. The project is still a work in progress.
The good news is that the cheap little computer board has been approved by the official Chromium OS team to run the operating system. What that means for now is that the Chromium OS can boot on the Raspberry Pi board. That doesn’t mean the operating system is stable on the hardware though.

Google has revealed the extent to which world governments request controversial or contrary sites be excluded from search results, using its Transparency Record to highlight potential censorship. The newly updated section details Google’s response to complaints such as YouTube videos allegedly promoting terrorism, with takedown-requests from the US more than doubling in the July to December 2011 period from the previous six months.
Although Google complied with some of the requests, it did not accede to all. In the final tally for that six month period, the search giant agreed to act or partially-act on as many as 93-percent of complaints (for the US) or as few as zero (for Russia, Hungary a...

Magnolia Broadband revealed that Google was buying some of its patents at the start of June, but to say that its confirmation was brief would be an understatement. It's being more verbose now that the transaction has been cleared: Google now owns over 50 patents for beamforming wireless signals. Magnolia characterizes the techniques as important to making the best use of cellular connections, which could well be helpful to a company that just bought Motorola. Having said this, we can't help but think that the various patent battles of Google's recent acquisition may play a part; obtaining cellular-specific patents would give potential attackers a reason to think twice.

Google on Sunday published its latest Transparency Report, which included data on government takedown requests made between July and December 2011. The Mountain View-based company reports that it has received more than 1,000 requests from governments around the world to remove items such as YouTube videos and search listings. The Internet giant, which complied with more than half the requests, noted that an increasing number of requests involved the removal of political content.

Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter maybe growing but UK consumers are still turning to Google when it comes to search and we're searching more and more.
According to the latest monthly figures from Experian Marketing Services, Google grew its share of the UK search market In May for the third consecutive month, and now nearly 91 out of every 100 searches in the UK use Google.
UK Internet users made 2.3 billion visits to search engines in May 2012, up by 82 million visits, representing a 3.7 percent monthly increase in search activity and a 3.6 percent year-on-year increase.
In total, Google Sites accounted for 91.17 per cent of all searches conducted in the UK in May 2012, up by 0...

Google has announced that it has updated its Hot Searches feature to provide even more detail on the most popular news of the moment. The refreshed page now includes both images and related news links for the most searched for stories in the US, as well as details on how many people have actually searched for that particular bit of news in the last 24 hours. In addition to the increased level of detail provided, Hot Searches has also cut back on the number of results it shows — instead of showing exactly 20 results each day, the page now displays "only the truly hottest news stories of the day," which so far is a lot less than 20. On Monday June 11th, for instance, only three stories were fe...

Google and a handful of other defendants in a mobile location data tracking lawsuit in California have been dismissed from the case. However, the court has ruled that Apple must defend itself from certain alleged consumer rights violations in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit is the product of last year's news that Apple and others were tracking the location of iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad customers and storing the data without consent. The discovery led to an uproar from users and privacy advocates. It prompted Apple to alter its software so it no longer stored the data. Apple also started asking users for permission before it could access a device's location.

MIT’s Technology Review has a nifty roundup of programs designed to help Android users keep their personal data away from the greedy hands of mobile apps that want access to their full contact lists, location data, browser history and more. The most intriguing entry comes from a Bulgarian software developer named Plamen Kosseff, who has actually rewritten the Android operating system so that it gives apps bogus data when users grant them permission to start scrounging around their phone. For example, when users give an app access to their bookmarks, it simply returns the default bookmarks list that came preloaded on their Android phones, or sends out a blank address book to apps that want to...

The latest stable build of Google Chrome for Mac has added a series of patches designed to help users transition to Mountain Lion. These stable builds are put out roughly every six weeks, but the latest one is a sign that Google is preparing for the OS that will be coming to machines this summer. In addition to the patches, it now uses Version 11.3 of Adobe Flash Player. The update should install automatically for current Mac users; first-time downloaders can find it here.
This change comes shortly after Google announced a Metro-optimized version of its browser for Windows 8. This isn't nearly as big a change, but it's another move towards the new generation of operating systems. Likewise, t...

The International Trade Commission today granted Apple's motion to dismiss five out of eight patents from HTC's case against the Cupertino company. HTC acquired rights to the five patents from Google last year, in a clear attempt to arm Android OEMs against Apple without getting directly involved. However, it looks like that strategy has backfired, at least in this particular case. While the ITC decision is not currently available to the public, the summary of the ruling does state that the patents were dismissed "due to lack of standing." Based on that, it seems whatever ownership or licensing rights HTC acquired from Google, it fell short of what is required under the law to permit enforce...

It may be late in the evening here in the States, but for T-Mobile users, your time in the sun has finally arrived -- Android 4.0.3 is now available via Samsung Kies for the Galaxy S II. According to the carrier, the update won't be made available via an OTA download, which means that if you don't have a PC, you'd best shake down a friend at this late hour -- or, at least give 'em a call in the morning. In addition to Ice Cream Sandwich, the update is said to bring WiFi calling improvements and enhancements to the voicemail system. It'd also be wise to ensure that your phone's software is up-to-date before you begin, as Android 2.3.6 is a prerequisite of the upgrade. Ready to dive in? Just h...

How we do it

Want to read all the cool news? Tired of seeing the same story written over and over again, while missing some other interesting ones? Here we are, humanly agregating most great news sites to post all interesting news, but show each story only once.